Blair vs Sven 6

Workout of the Day

Deadlift 5, 3, 1+

Good Mornings 10, 10, 10

WOD A:

15, 12, 9

Front Squat (80 kg)

KB Swing (32 kg)

Box Jump (60 cm)

WOD B:

250 m row/25 pullups

200 m row/20 pullups

150 m row/15 pullups

Today was the beginning of the third week in my current 5/3/1 progression and the day I finally tackled Sven’s challenge #6. Brutal workload. Both took place at CrossFit East Sacramento with Justin and Travis, two guys I love training with.

My deadlifts felt great. Hit 435 for 2 on my top set, but that result masks how strong I felt. Both felt light, but the third drifted away from my body right off the ground and I had to drop it to stay safe. We all did the good mornings for assistance work, then set things up to take up Sven’s challenge.

On paper, this didn’t look so bad. I figured I could do the squats pretty decently all the way through but this was not the case. First set I hammered out no sweat. Second set I had to break at 6 and 10, the last set just at 6. The swings weren’t too tough on any set and the box jumps were only tough because I was wearing vibrams—landing was a bit sensitive. Really, this WOD boiled down to squatting for me. My midline was pretty fatigued from the deads and good mornings so once my breath rate started to elevate it was game over. I finished in 5:22.

Exactly 5 minutes later I started WOD B. Again, not so tough on paper. Short row bursts and manageable pullup numbers. But in reality I struggled. I went out the first 250 at a 1:35 pace and burned my arms more than I should have. The pullups I did 15 and 10. The second row felt much worse because I think my heart rate was thumping up around 180 already. I fell apart on the pullup bar, getting 4 sets of 5. The last round I did my best to regroup and finish hard on the erg, but still only managed 3 x 5 on the pullup bar. Final time was 15:24, meaning my total work time was 10:24.

Travis, Justin, and I all were wrecked afterwards. My arms felt incredibly pumped for a solid 20 minutes and my head felt dazed. Definitely a great challenge from Sven and a testing day at the office for me, but I’m not sure this much work in one 2 hour span is going to become the norm. I need a serious nap.